SheWolf (Revamped!)
by Bamon
Summary: No amount of excuses will work this time. Her father wants her home, and with her coursework almost finished, Rachel has run out of excuses. She just never expected to return the way she did, and she didn't expect to find true love with the man that had once humiliated her at school. La Push would never be the same again. AN: The original story, SheWolf, has been revamped to this.


**SheWolf**.

Chapter One: Excuses, Excuses.

"Daddy, I can't come home."

Rachel sighed, rubbing the end of her pencil against her left temple as strands of her black, wavy hair brushed against her cheeks. She was leant forward a little, the rough ponytail she had shoved her hair into that morning doing most of its duty to keep her hair back and away from her face. Her laptop sat infront of her on top of two of her pillows from the left side of her bed, whilst the two on her right side were currently behind her cushioning her back as she sat cross legged on her double bed.

Although she was close to graduating early, and technically could go home at any point she had no desire to ever return to La Push. She still hadn't gotten over the death of her mother, and as long as she avoided La Push a small part of her could pretend her mother was still alive. Her excuses weren't working as well as they used to with her father however. First she made the excuse that she had study. She had exams and computer engineering wasn't a simple subject. Other times she gave the excuse she had to work to pay for her living expenses. The special occasions such as family holidays and birthdays, however, were far harder to avoid. She had done so thus far but each time she felt terrible about missing them and usually ended up eating a family size bar of Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate in an attempt to bury her guilt.

She was running out of original excuses and she knew her father wasn't buying them any more either. It had been years now, and she supposed it all had to come to a head at some point. She just wished it hadn't been so soon.

"I'm really busy. I'm just getting to the last of my coursework. I can't just up and leave."

Rachel replied to her father, her eyes filled with guilt and shame as she listened to his continued pleas. Sometimes she did get annoyed at her twin. Why Rebecca had to move so far away, to Hawaii of all places for a surfer - which was even worse -, leaving Rachel the closest one to her family and thus the one that got the majority of her father's pleas to return to see him and Jacob got to Rachel. She just knew Rebecca had planned this so she didn't have to deal with any of this emotional blackmail.

"Daddy... Okay, I promise once this coursework is done I'll come home."

She eventually gave in, closing her eyes as she dropped her pencil and began rubbing her forehead with her fingers. She really did not want to return home but she wasn't one to give fake promises and her father knew that. He also knew she couldn't be stubborn forever. It was something all three Black children shared. They were all stubborn but considering both of their parents were known for being very stubborn themselves it wasn't surprising. With the promise made the conversation went to the local gossip and goings on of La Push which her father was more then happy to fill her in on.

Leaning back against her pillows, her head pressed lightly against her bedroom wall above the headboard of her bed, Rachel paid attention to what her father was saying. She went wide eyed as her father mentioned a lot of the boys - well he said men - on the reservation had bulked up muscle wise and seemed to be getting a lot of female attention. Her mother used to be the matchmaker of the family, a firm lover of romance that Rachel shared, but with her gone it seemed her father was stepping up to take her place in that department.

He couldn't be serious. Yet Rachel knew he was. They both knew he'd do anything to get her to return and stay. That meant even finding her a man to get her to do so. She could only hope when she did eventually return there would be no blind dates or any dates for that matter.

"I'm fine being single. Apart from you and Jacob, men are an unnecessary complication. Besides the fact I don't want a boyfriend, I highly doubt you can find any that can handle me."

There was a pause then before Rachel quickly piped up again, taking off her glasses.

"No! That is not a challenge! I'm just far more comfortable studying and working."

Even though she loved romance, all forms of fiction in where romance was involved, Rachel wasn't the type to date. She found it hard to trust men that weren't her father or brother. She'd one had a crush on a native boy which had been a disaster from day one. Not only was he a manwhore, a player, and a complete all around ass but he liked to humiliate others. Mostly it was through bullying the weaker students. It was just before her Prom that he noticed her and asked her out. At the time she had known she should have said no. It would have been the smart thing to do but there was a small part of her wondering - what if this was real? What if he did really like her? Could she just pass up on this opportunity for that fairytale romance? She couldn't, and she had said yes. He hadn't turned up to pick her up for the Prom and when she arrived there late he was with a slutty cheerleader, making out and groping her heavily. Anyone could see sex would be on the cards for the couple.

Since then Rachel had just decided to give up on dating and focus on her schoolwork. It was just far easier.

Goodbyes were soon said and a relieved sigh left Rachel's lips as she hung up the phone. For a moment she pressed the top of her phone, a landline, to her forehead before letting it drop onto the bed beside her. With her working mood thoroughly ruined, Rachel closed her laptop and proceeded to get ready for the day, putting her glasses back on. She would have to go out anyway to get some food in since she had been forced to get a takeaway the previous night.

Rachel took off her tiger print onesie, complete with a tail and hood with ears, reluctantly before putting on a pair of black trousers with an elastic waistband and an oversized white tiger short sleeved t-shirt she got from Busch Gardens along with a matching pair of plain black bra and full brief panties, before shoving on her favourite and worn pair of black Uggs. She shoved her knee length, fluffy, white jumper on over the top, grabbed her discounted designer handbag and left her dorm room.

Thoroughly wrapped up, Rachel braved the usual cold weather of Washington and walked off campus. Fortunately there was a small grocery shop just around the corner so she didn't have to walk far. With little (no) exercise and a lot of indulgence Rachel wasn't in shape and had her own share of puppy fat so the fact she didn't have to go far for anything was certainly a plus. She knew she should go on a diet but she always told herself she just didn't have the time to do it. Another excuse.

Rachel barely gave the grey, cloudy sky a second glance as she left the outside to go inside the store. The fact no one could see the sun or sky was an almost every day thing that most residents ignored at this point in time. They only paid attention when it was heavy rain or actually sunny for once.

She noticed the newspapers had headlines of more deaths and missing persons, although it seemed to be slowly on the decline. For some reason Rachel felt that was not a good thing. She put the headlines to the back of her mind however. News was just depressing whether in newspapers, on radio, or on television so she made it a point to avoid it where she could. She believed in living each moment as happily as possible. What was the point in finding out about the news? It was just about the same depressing things; wars, deaths, attacks, murders, and rapes. Life was depressing enough without having to add the news into it.

Grabbing a basket, Rachel wandered around the aisles. She grabbed a pint of milk, bread, a bunch of bananas, cheese, butter, biscuits (which consisted of shortbread and chocolate digestives) and a week's worth of ready meals as well as her favourite puddings. She paid for it all swiftly, and left the store with two grocery bags. As she turned the corner with her bags, her gaze on the pavement just a few inches before her feet, she felt her shoulder hit something abnormally hard. Frowning, Rachel glanced up only to a woman with firey, curly red hair looking at her with disgust and smelling equally as bad. She could have sworn she heard a growl but then the woman turned and sauntered off, disappearing around the corner she had just come from.

"Odd."

She murmured to herself before shaking her head and continuing on her way.

The next month Rachel tried to drag her coursework out as much as possible, and succeeded until the last day of the four week period when she began to feel different. She had noticed she was getting slowly more aggressive over the past four weeks, but it was until the last day of the four week period that it got beyond the excuse of 'her time of the month' or 'her impending home visit'. It was something else, and when a simple alarm clock ringing caused her to send her fist through a wall the pain set in.

If felt like her bones were going through the worst growth spurt in seconds only to repeat over and over again. She found it hard to leave her bed let alone her bedroom, and that was before her temperature began to soar. Her blankets on her bed soon took its place on the floor along with her clothing as she lay squirming on her bed. She was in and out of consciousness, practically delirious, and barely managed a thought of 'how come no one can hear me screaming?' throughout the entire ordeal.

She knew it was days she went through this, the dark and light through the window she managed to glimpse throughout the entire thing managed to tell her this much.

On the fourth day she managed to regain control of her own mind, managed to focus, despite her body still trembling. She laid there panting as her body continued to go through seizures, although she noticed she seemed to have gotten used to a higher temperature - that although boiling it didn't feel like it was burning _her_ - the pain was getting worse. She had this control for a mere minute before something happened she didn't expect.

Rachel felt like she exploded. Her bed broke. She heard the crack, snap, and crash. All blankets and pillows were shredded, the scraps of material flying in every direction away from her told her this through her eyesight. The pain was gone now but she felt bigger. Heavier. She could see better. Infact she saw better then she did when she wore her glasses, and yet they still sat innocently on her bedside table. She could hear everything in the dorm building. Her soft bedding felt softer then normal, she could taste things on the air which was strange in itself, and god she could smell how disgusting her dorm room smelt. When had she last cleaned?!

_'What the fuck is going on?!'_ Rachel thought.

In that moment she wanted nothing more then her daddy telling her everything was going to be alright. Sighing, she reached a hand out towards the phone that sat on her bedside table only to freeze at what she saw.

_'Holy shit! Is... is that a paw?!'_

A huge hairy paw was infront of her, having moved as she willed her hand to do so, looking as innocent as a giant sized paw could do. For a moment all Rachel could think was that she had paws, and funnily enough they were a dark russet colour - just a shade darker then her own skin but with a bit more of a firey red hue to it - which was rather attractive. Snapping out if, Rachel turned her head to see a lupine looking body where really hers should have been. It was complete with a long, fluffy tail. She filled her entire bedroom, most of her belongings now in shreds, and she knew she would not be able to get through her bedroom door at this rate.

She had to be a wolf, or some kind of dog, just in mutant size. However what she couldn't think of was why. What had happened to cause this kind of reaction? She had seen and read a lot of superhero fiction but she knew she hadn't encountered anything those heros had which could have caused this reaction. No radioactive spider. No accident with advanced technology that hadn't been perfected yet. No chemical accident. So why was she like this?

How was she supposed to turn up in La Push like this? She'd give her father a heart attack, and he was the Chief of the Tribe. He was responsible for the entire tribe, along with some Elders under his leadership, so he was used to stressful things. He also knew the Quilette language and their legends by heart so he would have heard most of the wierdest things that existed. He'd never be able to handle this despite all that.

It was then she remembered something as she went through that chain of thought. The Quilette legends. Wasn't there one saying their tribe descended from wolves? No... Wolf Spirits! Yes, that was it. It was about a group of warriors, their ancestors, that shared the bodies of wolves to overcome their enemy. It was one explanation for what she was now, although farfetched, and right now she needed some kind of logic. Some kind of reason. So, if she was a Spirit Warrior now, then what had caused her to become one? Perhaps the enemy? What was the enemy again? Rachel then remembered the Cold Ones, although she couldn't remember if they were given many details about what a Cold One was.

Clearly a Cold One was a threat for normal humans to change into massive wolves. Maybe they were faster then the average human? Maybe greater strength and stamina. Definitely better senses since she knew hers were better then a human's. It almost sounded like a Cold One was something supernatural yet the only thing supernatural she had heard of that could be 'cold' in temperature as it were was vampires.

Could vampires be real?

_'Damn it. I need to get to La Push and find those books in the Tribal Hall. I have to find out more!'_

Rachel grumbled, and so she slowly pushed off with her front paws. Slowly her front end lifted, so Rachel did the same with her back paws, only she shuffled them forward a little as she did so. She couldn't help but feel pleased, proud, and relieved she had managed to stand up. Now she just had to figure out how to get out of her dorm room with as little disruption as possible to the rest of the world. She knew this was something she couldn't let anyone see or know about. Fortunately she was on the ground floor on the outskirts of campus near a small, thick area of trees. If she could get amongst the trees then she would be hidden enough to come up with another plan.

Unfortunately though, short of just throwing herself through a wall she didn't know how she would get out considering the size she was.

Rachel couldn't help but sigh again although she realised it came out as an exhale as a wolf. Her belongings were already ruined, there were slashes in the wall now that she was looking, so she supposed a huge hole in the wall wasn't going to change much. It would still look like a ferocious attack by feral animals. She could only be relieved she had never told her father, brother, or twin sister what dorm building or dorm room she was in. At least it would save them a bit of worry.

Cringing a little, she looked at the wall with a fair amount of fear. She only guessed she was stronger then a human since she was a mutant size. If she was wrong this was going to hurt - a lot. She knew she didn't have much of a choice though. Facing the wall, Rachel slowly experimented with walking, doing one paw at a time but that didn't seem to work well. She then remembered how she had seen dogs walk, usually with two paws at a time per stride, so she attempted to copy them. Once she had that down, having walked back and forth in two strides due to the limited amount of space, she then proceeded to attempt to jump a little without falling down. She would need speed to crash through that wall. It took a little longer to get used to the jumping, but she did soon enough, and with a grimace leapt forward.

She almost tripped with one stride of an attempt at running, but even tripping she had enough speed for her body to throw itself through the wall with an almighty crack, snap, and crash. The sound was so loud that Rachel knew she had no time to dawdle. She pushed herself back up onto all fours before running once more. She still tripped and stumbled, but forced herself to stay upright as she dashed across the grass then into the trees. She managed to get inside the darkness of the small 'forest' as by the time her tail finally joined her body in her hidden spot she saw a crowd now swarming around her dorm room.

Rachel couldn't help but groan mentally. She was so screwed. Even if she managed to get human again she had no idea how the hell she was supposed to fix all that damage and pay for it. She could only just about pay for her normal living expenses.

She was so, so screwed. '_La Push had better have answers'_, Rachel thought as she trudged through the forest. Now she just had to find her way home, much to her displeasure.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Okay, so I deleted the previous version because it just didn't flow, nor did it make sense in quite a few places. I knew it could be a lot better, and the imperfections drove me a little crazy. This is the revamped version, and I do hope it'll be a lot better then the first version. This is also the reason I deleted Dawn To Dusk - I do hope to revamp that as well and some point, but for now I'm just revamping this one. Let me know what you think!


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